to me that these had no occasion to _ask_ for help, for more than once I
have seen a "poor woman" coming in with her bed upon her back, putting
it down in the warmest corner behind the chimney breast, and making
herself at home as a matter of course, without going through the
formality of asking for a night's lodging.

Of the enormous number of harvestmen who passed every year through
Liverpool, except from the County Donegal, there were not so many from
the northern province. The majority were from Connaught. They generally
landed at the Clarence Dock, Liverpool, a wiry, hardy-looking lot, with
frieze coats, corduroy breeches, clean white shirts with high collars,
and blackthorn sticks. I have seen them filling the breadth of Prescot
Street, as they left the town, marching up like an army on foot to the
various parts of England they were bound for. This was before special
cheap trains were run for harvestmen.

At night, in my Irish mountain home, after I had prepared my Latin
lessons for the following day, and my uncle, aunt, and cousins had left
off work, I joined with great enjoyment in the family group around the
turf fire, and listened with rapt attention to songs and stories; my
favourite among the latter being the adventures of Barney Henvey among
the fairies in the old rath, or "forth," as they called it, of
Ballymagenaghy.

I may say that, up to this moment, I have a certain liking for such
stories--of course _as_ fairy stories. But, being a boy of enquiring
mind, I wanted to get at the whole theory of the existence of these
beings, and, accordingly, this is what I gathered as to the origin,
present existence, and future state of the "good people," as they called
them. In "The Irish Fairy Legends," a number of my "Penny Irish
Library," I find I have dealt with the subject. As the passage gives the
explanation I got at my uncle Oiney's more correctly than I can trust
to my memory to give it now, after a lapse of some sixty years, I may be
excused for giving the following extract:--

The belief is that, in the great rebellion of Lucifer, of the
spirits who fell from heaven, some, not so guilty as those who
"went further and fared worse," fell upon our earth, and into the
air and water that surround it. These are the _Fairies_, who have
their various dispositions, like mortals, and like them, at the day
of judgment, will be rewarded or punished according to their
deserts.