a neighbour within twelve miles. Well, I went over there--it was, as
well as I remember, December two years. Never was there such weather;
it rained from morning till night, and blew and rained from night till
morning; the slates were flying about on every side, and we used to keep
fellows up all night, that in case the chimneys were blown away we 'd
know where to find them in the morning. This was the pleasant weather
I selected for my visit to the "Devil's Grip"--that was the name of the
town-land where the house stood; and no bad name either, for, 'faith, if
he hadn't his paw on it, it might have gone in law,-like the rest of the
property. However, down I went there, and only remembered on the evening
of my arrival that I had ordered my gamekeeper to poison the mountain,
to get rid of the poachers; so that, instead of shooting, which, as I
said before, was all you could do in the place, there I was, with three
brace of dogs, two guns, and powder enough to blow up a church, walking
a big dining-parlour, all alone by myself, as melancholy as may be.

'You may judge how happy I was, looking out upon the bleak country-side,
with nothing to amuse me except when now and then the roof of some cabin
or other would turn upside down, like an umbrella, or watching an old
windmill that had gone clean mad, and went round at such a pace that
nobody dare go near it. All this was poor comfort. However, I got out of
temper with the place; and so I sat down and wrote a long advertisement
for the English papers, describing the Devil's Grip as a little
terrestrial paradise, in the midst of picturesque scenery, a delightful
neighbourhood, and an Arcadian peasantry, the whole to be parted
with---a dead bargain--as the owner was about to leave the country. I
didn't add that he had some thought of blowing his brains out with sheer
disgust of his family residence. I wound up the whole with a paragraph
to the effect that if not disposed of within the month, the proprietor
would break it up into small farms. I said this because I intended to
remain so long there; and, although I knew no purchaser would treat
after he saw the premises, yet still some one might be fool enough to
come over and look at them, and even that would help me to pass the
Christmas. My calculation turned out correct; for before a week was
over, a letter reached me, stating that a Mr. Green, of No. 196 High
Holborn, would pay me a visit as soon as the weather moderated and