s ignorance of any language save his
own ancient speech, wherein the ideas of to-day stand out in English
words like telegraph posts in a Connemara moorland.

Between the two stood the interpreter--small, old, froglike in profile,
full of the dignity of the Government official.

"Well, we should be getting on now," remarked the Chairman, Heraty,
J.P., after some explanatory politeness to his unexpected visitors.
"William, swear the plaintiff!"

The oath was administered in Irish, and the orange moustache brushed the
greasy Testament. The space above the dado of the partition became
suddenly a tapestry of attentive faces, clear-eyed, all-comprehending.

[Illustration: SWEENY.]

"This case," announced Mr. Heraty judicially yet not without a glance at
the visitors, "is a demand for compensation in the matter of a sheep
that was drowned. William"--this to the interpreter--"ask Darcy what he
has to say for himself?"

Darcy hitched himself round, still with a shoulder propped against the
partition, and uttered, without any enthusiasm, a few nasal and guttural
sentences.

"He says, yer worship," said William, with unctuous propriety, "that
Sweeny's gorsoons were ever and always hunting his sheep, and settin' on
their dog to hunt her, and that last week they dhrove her into the lake
and dhrownded her altogether."

"Now," said Mr. Heraty, in a conversational tone, "William, when ye
employ the word 'gorsoon,' do ye mean children of the male or female
sex?"

"Well, yer worship," replied William, who, it may incidentally be
mentioned, was himself in need of either an interpreter or of a new and
complete set of teeth, "I should considher he meant ayther the one or
the other."

"They're usually one or the other," said Doctor Lyden solemnly, and in a
stupendous brogue. It was the first time he had spoken; he leaned back,
with his hands in his pockets, and surveyed with quiet but very bright
eyes the instant grin that illumined the faces of the tapestry.

"Sure William himself is no bad judge of gorsoons," said Mr. Heraty.
"Hadn't he a christening in his own house three weeks ago?"

At this excursion into the family affairs of the interpreter the grin
broke into a roar.

"See now, we'll ask Mr. Byrne, the schoolmaster," went on Mr. Heraty
with owl-like gravity. "Isn't that Mr. Byrne that I see back there in
the coort? Come forward, Mr. Byrne!"

Thus adjured, a tall, spectacled man emerged from the crowd, and,
beaming