, and the majority of the gentry
willing to hazard everything on the issue of a struggle. Our Killala
experiences, of which I detailed some, heartily amused them, and it was
in a merry interchange of opinions that we now walked along together.

A cluster of houses, too small to be called a village, and known as the
'Cranagh,' stood in a little nook of the bay; and here they lived. They
were brothers; and the elder held some small appointment in the revenue,
which maintained them as bachelors in this cheap country. In a low
conversation that passed between them it was agreed that they would
detain me as their guest for that evening, and on the morrow accompany
me to the magistrate's house, about five miles distant. I was not sorry
to accept their hospitable offer. I longed for a few hours of rest and
respite before embarking on another sea of troubles. The failure of
the expedition, and the departure of the fleet, had overwhelmed me with
grief, and I was in no mood to confront new perils.

If my new acquaintances could have read my inmost thoughts, their manner
towards me could not have displayed more kindness or good-breeding.
Not pressing me with questions on subjects where the greatest curiosity
would have been permissible, they suffered me to tell only so much as I
wished of our late plans; and, as if purposely to withdraw my thoughts
from the unhappy theme of our defeat, led me to talk of France, and her
career in Europe.

It was not without surprise that I saw how conversant the newspapers had
made them with European politics, nor how widely different did events
appear when viewed from afar off, and by the lights of another and
different nationality. Thus all that we were doing on the Continent to
propagate liberal notions, and promote the spread of freedom, seemed to
their eyes but the efforts of an ambitious power to crush abroad
what they had annihilated at home, and extend their own influence in
disseminating doctrines, all to revert, one day or other, to some grand
despotism, whenever the man arose capable to exercise it. The elder
would not even concede to us that we were fit for freedom.

'You are glorious fellows at destroying an old edifice,' said he,
'but sorry architects when comes the question of rebuilding; and as
to liberty, your highest notion of it is an occasional anarchy like
schoolboys, you will bear any tyranny for ten years, to have ten days of
a "barring out" afterward.'

I was not much f