e village. As time passed they
told their hostess they were merchants, simple traders from a distant
country, trafficking in very precious gems; but they had no wares for
exchange, and no gems to show; they made no inquiries or researches,
bargained with no man, seemed to do no business; they were the most
unusual merchants ever seen in Ireland, and the strangeness of their
behaviour troubled men's minds.

Mysterious Behaviour

Day by day they ate, unquestioning, the coarse food their poor hostess
set before them, and the black bread which was the best food
obtainable in those terrible days, but they added to it wine, rich and
red, from their own private store, and they paid her lavishly in good
red gold, so that she wondered that any men should stay in the
famine-stricken country when they could so easily leave it at their
will. Gradually, too, speaking now in the Irish tongue, they began to
ask her cautious questions of the people, of the land, of the famine,
how men lived and how they died, and so they heard of the exceeding
goodness of the Countess Cathleen, whose bounty had saved so many
lives, and was still saving others, though the deadly pinch of famine
grew sorer with the passing days. To their hostess they admired
Cathleen's goodness, and were loud in her praises, but they looked
askance at one another and their brows were black with discontent.

Professed Errand of Mercy

Then one day the kingly merchants told the poor widow who harboured
them that they too were the friends of the poor and starving; they
were servants of a mighty prince, who in his compassion and mercy had
sent them on a mission to Ireland to help the afflicted peasants to
fight against famine and death. They said that they themselves had no
food to give, only wine and gold in plenty, so that men might exert
themselves and search for food to buy. Their hostess, hearing this,
and knowing that there were still some niggards who refused to part
with their mouldering heaps of corn, setting the price so high that no
man could buy, called down the blessing of God and Mary and all the
saints upon their heads, for if they would distribute their gold to
all, or even buy the corn themselves and distribute it, men need no
longer die of hunger.

A New Traffic

When she prayed for a blessing on the two strangers they smiled
scornfully and impatiently; and the elder said, cunningly:

"Alas! we know the evils of mere charity,
And wou