what
was obviously whooping-cough. "Sweeny's case is comin' on!"

Had the message been delivered by the Sergeant-at-Arms it could not have
been received with more respectful attention or been more immediately
obeyed. The porter was gulped down, one unfinished glass being bestowed
upon the Sergeant-at-Arms, possibly as a palliative for the
whooping-cough, and the party trooped up the road towards a thatched and
whitewashed cottage that stood askew at the top of a lane leading to the
seashore. Two tall constables of the R.I.C. stood at the door of the
cottage. It came to us, with a lifting of the heart, that we had
chanced upon Petty Sessions day in Letterbeg, and this was the
court-house.

It was uncommonly hot in what is called in newspapers "the body of the
court". Something of the nature of a rood-screen, boarded solidly up to
a height of about four feet, divided the long single room of the
cottage; we, with the rest of the public, were penned in the division
nearest the door. The cobwebbed boards of the loft overhead almost
rested on our hats; the public, not being provided with seats by the
Government, shuffled on the earthen floor and unaffectedly rested on us
and each other. Within the rood-screen two magistrates sat at a table,
with their suite, consisting of a clerk, an interpreter, and a district
inspector of police, disposed round them.

"The young fella with the foxy mustash is Docthor Lyden," whispered an
informant in response to a question, "and the owld lad that's lookin' at
ye now is Heraty, that owns the shop above--"

At this juncture an emissary from the Bench very kindly offered us seats
within the rood-screen. We took them, on a high wooden settle, beside
the magisterial table, and the business of the court proceeded.

Close to us stood the defendant, Sweeny, a tall elderly man, with a
long, composed, shaven face, and an all-observant grey eye: Irish in
type, Irish in expression, intensely Irish in the self-possession in
which he stood, playing to perfection the part of calm rectitude and
unassailable integrity.

Facing him, the plaintiff lounged against the partition; a man strangely
improbable in appearance, with close-cropped grey hair, a young,
fresh-coloured face, a bristling orange moustache, and a big, blunt
nose. One could have believed him a soldier, a German, anything but what
he was, a peasant from the furthest shores of Western Ireland, cut off
from what we call civilisation by hi