w on the trees, on the summit, causes them to look like gray locks;
and, looking down on the smaller mountains on every side, they appear
like his subjects or his sons, which, in time, are to grow big like
himself, affording shelter and refuge from the snares of the hunter to
the wild animals of nature. O, how I like America!" said he, his
enthusiasm still rising.

"That's right, Murty; I am glad you do like it. Wait till summer or
autumn, and then how beautiful these bleak hills will appear during
these delightful seasons!"

"O sir, it is a great, grand country! No tyrants, no landlords, no
poverty."

"No poverty, Murty, except what is purely accidental, or brought on by
the improvidence of individuals. In the very best regulated society
there must, of necessity, be poverty less or more," said the priest, by
way of qualification.

"Every thing is free, and there is liberty for all. The very fences, you
see, sir, unlike our stone walls at home, give liberty to the winds and
storms to blow through them. The mountains are free to the huntsman; the
very snow is free to blow and form itself into those beautiful banks,
and little mountains, and castles, and stacks, and curtains, and drapery
that we see on every side of us as we glide along."

The priest listened with astonishment.

"Was there ever seen any thing so _purty_," continued the peasant, "as
those ridges and mounds of snow? I have seen the grandest buildings in
Ireland,--Marlborough Street Church, in Dublin, the stone carving and
ceiling in Cashel of the Kings, the stucco work on the old Parliament
House in College Green,--but I think I see work in these fantastic snow
banks that beats them all hollow. And--glory be to God!--all this
beauty, so dazzling, so chaste, was created by a storm, when all nature
was in a rage, and men shut themselves up in houses from its violence! I
am glad now," said he, "our landlord turned us out. I now forgive him
for being the cause of our coming to this country of the brave and the
free."

"Was it a landlord who has been the occasion of so much enjoyment to
you, Murty?" said Father O'Shane, drawing him out.

"Yes, sir. It vexes me to think of it, much more to speak of it," said
the simple youth, with a tear full created in his eye. "We, and our
forefathers before us, had the farm of Lapardawn for more than three
hundred years. A new landlord coming in possession of the estate, we got
notice to quit, in the middle of winter