and Father Flannery too, please God. And now

good-bye to you."

"Good-bye to yer Honour-and send you safe

home."

And with that "God speed" we parted.

I was mounted on a rough looking, but surefooted Connemara pony, an animal accustomed from its infancy to carry double, and to whom the use of oats as an edible vegetable was almost unknown. Under these circumstances the pace at which I travelled was not, as may be inferred, a rapid one; and I had therefore ample leisure to satiate my eyes with the beauty of the scenery in the midst of which I was journeying. It was a nearly treeless country through which my road lay, and the valley traversed by it through its length was edged on both sides (and also at its apparent extremities) by precipitous and somewhat barren looking mountains. Along the lower portions of those mountains remains of former cultivation might be traced; a greener hue was there perceptible, in small and isolated patches; and near to those once well-tilled fields, heaps of stone, and here and there the remains of a pointed gable wall told their tale of the advent of the Saxon, for whose behoof those peasant homes had been made roofless.

SPLENDID SCENERY.

19

High up, and higher still, towards the corrugated line where the low clouds touched the mountain summits, the steep acclivities were dotted with purple heather, and lined down their rugged faces with many a watery furrow.

It was as lovely a day as a wanderer among mountain wilds could wish for. No glaring sun mocked with his broad shining face the dark desolation that dwelt in the deep hollows, where warmth and light found no place to enter; but ever and anon a bright gleam shone out from behind a cloud of down-like lightness, and then, as though with one accord, the green slopes smiled out into a more vivid colouring, and tipped with a sunny radiance, the towering summits of the dark grey rocks assumed a clothing of less sombre hue.

My road lay along the shores of lakes, and by the brink of a narrow but most rapid river. There were no signs of human life around me, and it was only by the occasional cry of a wild bird, the scream of a curlew, or the flapping of a heron's wings as he rose slowly from the river's brink, that the almost solemn stillness of the scene was momentarily broken. Far away, towards heaven's gate, an eagle soared and hovered, floating a thousand feet above the pigmy prey on which, while the unconscious

small bird nestled in the heather, his piercing eye was fixed. I watched him as he swooped to seize his victim, but ere his talons touched the earth a rock hid him from my view, and passing onward I saw the Arab of the air no more.

After a ride of some four miles I emerged "upon what is called by the natives a public road, and truly enough upon it I began to see some proof that in these distant regions the race of man is not altogether extinct. It was the anniversary of a distinguished saint, and moreover the day on which is held the great Pathern, or Fair of Murrisk. Every one who knows anything of the highlands of beautiful Connaught has seen, or a tleast heard of, the far-famed mountain, the almost sacred Reek, from the highest peak of which St. Patrick did, by "bell and book and candle," curse the reptiles of the land, bidding them "go out o' that" for ever and for aye. At the foot of that famous mountain lies the townland (as it is called) of Murrisk. Within its precincts the Pathern is held, and during its continuance there rises round the side of old Croagh Patrick many a sound of noisy merriment, shouts of drunken revelry, and violent faction fights.

During the month of August it has for ages been a custom among the peasantry to go through a

PENANCE AND WHISKY.

21

course of religious observances, the penances imposed during the period being all the while strangely mixed up with the fun and frolic, the whisky drinking and barbarous "batings" which have for centuries past formed the combined elements of Hibernian gatherings. Far up the mountain side might be seen crawling forms bare-kneed and bleeding, for while the rough stones chafe their limbs they count the beads of their rosaries, and with many a muttered Ave, hope, and believe (for "sure the priest has said it") that through the penance performed the score chalked against them may be washed out, and that, "by the blessing of God," they may be permitted to run up another reckoning.

But of all the sacred shrines to which during the merry August month are bent the steps of the pious mountaineers, that of Our Lady at the Holy Well of Kilgeeva is the most renowned, and in its miraculous powers the most effective.

"Sure it was there that the English jintleman from the airmy took the holy fish that has lived in the well evermore; and bedad! the fish-long life to him—got out of the frying-pan, and threw a lep, so he did, right fornenst the jintleman, and the wife that was along wid 'im: and the two of them was dead and waked within the year, Bad cess to 'em!

And the fish he got back to the well-by the blessing of God—as he did."

This, and many another record of miraculous interference is told concerning that wonderful spot; and, as may be supposed, numerous are the votaries that journey towards it, in the full belief and expectation that they will there not only receive pardon for their sins, but will be healed of all their bodily infirmities.

As I proceeded on my way, I soon found myself among small parties of the country people, all of whom were on their way, either to the Pathern or to the Well. Men and women-boys and girlspilgrims on foot and pilgrims on horseback, all the heads turned one way, and that way was due west towards the fair.

On sped the merry groups--the women and girls clothed in their bright red petticoats and snow white kerchiefs, while the men, in decided opposition to the picturesque, had donned their best frieze suits, tall hats, and extensive shirt collars. On they went along the silent valley, beneath the everlasting hills, and side by side with the rapid river: and so journeying they came at last to the rocky ford, where the mountain stream runs narrowest. It was a pretty sight that river crossing! and only