but the old dame was inclined to think that the angels and saints
had taken her in charge, and nothing could exceed her gratitude.

She offered us a potato from the pot, a cup of tea or goat's milk,
and a bunch of wildflowers from a cracked cup; and this last we

accepted as we departed in a shower of blessings, the most
interesting of them being, "May the Blessed Virgin twine your brow

with roses when ye sit in the sates of glory!" and "The Lord be good
to ye, and sind ye a duke for a husband!" We felt more than repaid

for our impulsive interest, and as we disappeared from sight a last
'Bannact dea leat!' ('God's blessing be on your way!') was wafted to

our ears.
I seem to have known all these people before, and indeed I have met

them between the covers of a book; for Connemara has one prophet,
and her name is Jane Barlow. In how many of these wild bog-lands of

Connaught have we seen a huddle of desolate cabins on a rocky
hillside, turf stacks looking darkly at the doors, and empty black

pots sitting on the thresholds, and fancied we have found Lisconnel!
I should recognise Ody Rafferty, the widow M'Gurk, Mad Bell, old

Mrs. Kilfoyle, or Stacey Doyne, if I met them face to face, just as
I should know other real human creatures of a higher type,--Beatrix

Esmond, Becky Sharp, Meg Merrilies, or Di Vernon.
Chapter XXIII. Beams and motes.

'Mud cabins swarm in
This place so charming,

With sailor garments
Hung out to dry;

And each abode is
Snug and commodious,

With pigs melodious
In their straw-built sty.'

Father Prout.
'"Did the Irish elves ever explain themselves to you, Red Rose?"

'"I can't say that they did," said the English Elf. "You can't call
it an explanation to say that a thing has always been that way,

just: or that a thing would be a heap more bother any other way."'
The west of Ireland is depressing, but it is very beautiful; at

least if your taste includes an appreciation of what is wild,
magnificent, and sombre. Oppressed you must be, even if you are an

artist, by its bleakness and its dreariness, its lonely lakes
reflecting a dull, grey sky, its desolate boglands, its solitary

chapels, its wretched cabins perched on hillsides that are very
wildernesses of rocks. But for cloud effects, for wonderful

shadows, for fantastic and unbelievable sunsets, when the mountains
are violet, the lakes silver with red flashes, the islets gold and

crimson and purple, and the whole cloudy west in a flame, it is
unsurpassed; only your standard of beauty must not be a velvet lawn

studded with copper beeches, or a primary-hued landscape bathed in
American sunshine. Connemara is austere and gloomy under a dull

sky, but it has the poetic charm that belongs to all mystery, and
its bare cliffs and ridges are delicately pencilled on a violet

background, in a way peculiar to itself and enchantingly lovely.
The waste of all God's gifts; the incrediblepoverty; the miserable

huts, often without window or chimney; the sad-eyed women, sometimes
nothing but 'skins, bones, and grief'; the wild, beautiful children,

springing up like startled deer from behind piles of rocks or
growths of underbrush; the stony little bits of earth which the

peasants cling to with such passion, while good grasslands lie
unused, yet seem for ever out of reach,--all this makes one dream,

and wonder, and speculate, and hope against hope that the worst is
over and a better day dawning. We passed within sight of a hill

village without a single road to connect it with the outer world.
The only supply of turf was on the mountain-top, and from thence it

had to be brought, basket by basket, even in the snow. The only
manure for such land is seaweed, and that must be carried from the

shore to the tiny plats of sterile earth on the hillside. I
remember it all, for I refused to buy a pair of stockings of a woman

along the road. We had taken so many that my courage failed; but I
saw her climbing the slopes patiently, wearily, a shawl over her

white hair,--knitting, knitting, knitting, as she walked in the rain
to her cabin somewhere behind the high hills. We never give to

beggars in any case, but we buy whatever we can as we are able; and
why did I draw the line at that particular pair of stockings, only

to be haunted by that pathetic figure for the rest of my life?
Beggars there are by the score, chiefly in the tourist districts;

but it is only fair to add that there are hundreds of huts where it
would be a dire insult to offer a penny for a glass of water, a sup

of milk, or the shelter of a turf fire.
As we drive along the road, we see, if the umbrellas can be closed

for a half-hour, flocks of sheep grazing on the tops of the hills,
where it is sunnier, where food is better and flies less numerous.

Crystal streams and waterfalls are pouring down the hillsides to
lose themselves in one of Connemara's many bays, and we have a

glimpse of osmunda fern, golden green and beautiful. It was under a
branch of this Osmunda regalis that the Irish princess lay hidden,

they say, till she had evaded her pursuers. The blue turf smoke
rises here and there,--now from a cabin with house-leek growing on

the crumbling thatch, now from one whose roof is held on by ropes
and stones,--and there is always a turf bog, stacks and stacks of

the cut blocks, a woman in a gown of dark-red flannel resting for a
moment, with the empty creel beside her, and a man cutting in the

distance. After climbing the long hill beyond the 'station' we are
rewarded by a glimpse of more fertile fields; the clumps of ragwort

and purple loosestrife are reinforced with kingcups and lilies
growing near the wayside, and the rare sight, first of a pot of

geraniums in the window, and then of a garden all aglow with red
fuchsias, torch plants, and huge dahlias, so cheers Veritas that he

takes heart again. "This is something like home!" he exclaims
breezily; whereupon Mr. Shamrock murmurs that if people find nothing

to admire in a foreign country save what resembles their own, he
wonders that they take the trouble to be travelling.

"It is a darlin' year for the pitaties," the drivers says; and there
are plenty of them planted hereabouts, even in stony spots not worth

a keenogue for anything else, for "pitaties doesn't require anny
inTHRICKet farmin', you see, ma'am."

The clergyman remarks that only three things are required to make
Ireland the most attractive country in the world: "Protestantism,

cleanliness, and gardens"; and Mr. Shamrock, who is of course a
Roman Catholic, answers this tactful speech in a way that surprises

the speaker and keeps him silent for hours.
The Birmingham cutler, who has a copy of Ismay's Children in his

pocket, triumphantly reads aloud, at this moment, a remark put into
the mouth of an Irish character: "The low Irish are quite destitute

of all notion of beauty,--have not the remotest particle of artistic
sentiment or taste; their cabins are exactly as they were six

hundred years ago, for they never want to improve themselves."
Then Mr. Shamrock asserts that any show of prosperity on a tenant's

part would only mean an advance of rent on the landlord's; and Mr.
Rose retorts that while that might have been true in former times,

it is utterly false to-day.
Mrs. Shamrock, who is a natural apologist, pleads that the Irish

gentry have the most beautiful gardens in the world and the greatest
natural taste in gardening, and there must be some reason why the

lower classes are so different in this respect. May it not be due
partly to lack of ground, lack of money to spend on seeds and

fertilisers, lack of all refining, civilising and educating
influences? Mr. Shamrock adds that the dwellers in cabins cannot

successfully train creepers against the walls or flowers in the
dooryard, because of the goat, pig, donkey, ducks, hens, and

chickens; and Veritas asks triumphantly, "Why don't you keep the pig
in a sty, then?"

The man with the evergreen heart (who has already been told this
morning that I am happily married, Francesca engaged, Salemina a

determined celibate, but Benella quite at liberty) peeps under
Salemina's umbrella at this juncture, and says tenderly, "And what