CHAPTER IV.

FATHER MAGUIRE.-OWEN KELLY'S FATE.

WHEN We had been rather more than a week established in the mountain lodge, which I will

designate as Glanbeg," our small and pleasant party received an unexpected and not very welcome addition in the person of Mr. Oswald Tremlett, an English country gentleman, possessed of a limited landed estate, but of considerable personal importance, according to his own belief, in the county of Devonshire. A narrow-minded individual was this invader of our mountain solitudes-narrow-minded, prejudiced, and essentially parochial. But he was Mrs. Fairholme's brother, so we were bound, not only to permit of his encroachment, but to greet him with words of welcome, which my conscience at least whispered to me were false.

It was Mr. Tremlett's first introduction to a country which he had from his childhood been accustomed to look upon as the head-quarters of all

that is dangerous, both to individuals, to society, and to the form of religion which, in his narrow-minded bigotry, he believed to be the only one capable of saving a human soul from punishment everlasting.

A solemn, smileless face he had, long and narrow as the prejudices which had grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength; in short, it was scarcely possible to imagine a being so unlike our bright-faced Bertha, as the pale self-concentrated-looking brother who, late on one rainy evening, dropped in upon us, to our exceeding great discomfiture.

As might have been expected from this short sketch of our guest, he arrived full of complaints of the inconveniences of the journey, the slowness of the travelling, the wretchedness of the climate, and the importunity of the beggars. And then the food! The miserable poultry, fed on dirt heaps and dressed in grease; and the eggs, which according to an ancient writer,* two centuries, I believe, ago, "were laid and kept in their cabbins in dampes and musty stenches, and did partake of the same."

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They are not a bit improved since St. Patrick came over to see what he could do with them, that my firm belief," said Tremlett, with a self-satisfied

is

* Vide Sir William Petty's Political Survey of Ireland.

smile at his own facetiousness; "and only look at that horse," he added, pointing to the lean, little well-bred mare which stood with heaving flanks at the door. "It could hardly go a yard-stopped at every rising ground.”

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When, of course, you were informed by the driver," interrupted Fairholme, "that she was never known to do such a thing in the course of all her twenty years of life before?"

"Bedad thin and she was not, your Honour," put in Paddy, who was listening to the conversation. "She's the best mare to go between this and Daublin," and as he spoke he smoothed Biddy's "bald face" encouragingly.

"I don't know what you mean by going," said Tremlett, taking out his watch; "we've been two hours coming eight miles, and I have a good mind to report the fact of the great cruelty you have committed in driving such an animal at all. Why she is nothing but skin and bone; look at her ribs, and say if you ought not to be ashamed of yourself."

'Bedad thin, yer Honour," said Paddy, scratching his shock head, for he was sorely troubled between the claims of his mare on his championship, and his natural as well as national desire to agree in every opinion advanced by a gentleman. "Bedad thin,

yer Honour-she is poor, surely.

It's the dhrop

she has in her as does it, and sure she's a great little horse, and carries a dale of ground."

We all laughed, even Tremlett, at poor Paddy's excuses; and then the new arrival, who by his own account was extremely to be pitied, inasmuch as he was cold and wet and wearied, followed us into the little parlour at the scant comforts of which, and its almost carpetless floor, he evidently looked with a considerable amount of contempt.

"We haven't got much of a house, you see," said my friend Edward, apologetically. "But we live a great deal out of doors, both on land and sea, and-"

"How about the weather?" put in Tremlett,

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sarcastically. 'Here have I been three days in the country, and seen nothing but rain, and heard nothing but wind. I declare I never closed my ears last night for the noise of the wild west wind blowing and wailing over the Atlantic, and then coming with a thump and a bluster against the window-panes, till I thought they must all have been shattered by the concussion."

"Not at all," laughed Bertha. "They are used to it, as we are. You should have been on board the 'Humming Bird,' in the bay with us.

It was

delicious, with the waves in the little harbour washing against her sides, and Con Navan (that's our second man) singing his wild ditties about colleens, cows, and fairies, all mixed up together. It was quite delightful!”

and

I rather doubted whether the description given by his sister exactly came up to Tremlett's idea of an agreeable situation; for he only shrugged his shoulders, as he continued the solacing of his inner man with the broiled salmon and whisky punch which had been set before him.

The next morning, Mrs. Fairholme's discontented brother had something else to see and to hear besides the wind and rain, which had so sorely tried his patience and his temper; for a glorious sun shone out from the clear blue sky, while the small white fleecy clouds moving slowly onwards painted patches of a darker hue, and of strange fantastic shapes upon the green of the mountains where the white sheep cropped the dainty herbage, looking in the distance like scattered stones in places inaccessible to the foot of man.

I was the first awake in our wild mountain home, and the first in my greetings to the rather rare but ever-welcome sun as he warmed the walls of our often-moistened retreat, and reminded me of the