I don't think that is a strict
obligation in conscience."

In America, the courts, I fear, would make short work of this theory of
Father M'Fadden. If a tenant there cannot pay his first quarter's rent
(they don't let him darken his soul by a year's liabilities) they
promptly and mercilessly put him out.

Interesting as was our conversation with the parish priest of Gweedore,
I felt that we might be trespassing too far upon his kindness and his
time. So we rose to go. He insisted upon our going into the dining-room,
where, as he told us, he had hospitably entertained sundry visiting
statesmen from England, and there offered us a glass of the excellent
wine of the country. He excused himself from joining us as being
"almost a teetotaller."

On our return to the hotel I met the Galwegian strolling about. When I
told him of Father M'Fadden's courteous hospitality, he said, "I am very
glad you took that glass he offered. I really believe his quarrel with
Captain Hill dates back to Hill's declining that same courtesy under
Father M'Fadden's roof."

GWEEDORE, _Monday, Feb. 6._--Another very beautiful morning--as a farmer
said with whom I chatted on my morning stroll, "A grand day, sorr!"
Errigal, which in this mountain atmosphere seems almost to hang over our
hotel, but is in reality three or four miles away, stood out superbly
against a clear azure sky, wreaths of soft luminous mist floating like a
divine girdle half way up his bare volcanic peak.

I walked up to the Bunbeg road with Lord Ernest to call upon some
peasants whom he knows. In one stone cabin, very well built and
plastered, standing sidewise to the road, with doors on either side, we
found the house apparently in charge of a little girl of nine or ten
years, a weird but pretty child with very delicate well-cut features,
who lay couchant upon her doubled-up arm on a low bed in a corner of the
main room, and peered at us over her elbow with sparkling inquisitive
eyes.

By her side sat a man with his cap on, who might have been the "young
Pretender," or the "old Kaiser," so far as his looks went towards
indicating his age. He never rose or welcomed us, being, as we
afterwards found out, only a visitor like ourselves, and a kinsman of
Mrs. M'Donnell, the head of the house. "Mrs. M'Donnell," he said, "is
gone to the store at Bunbeg."

This main room rose perhaps ten feet in height to the open roof. It had
one large and well-glazed window. When Lord George