nformed traveller. It is, on
the contrary, the mere reflection of native opinion.

VI.

THE RELIEF OF MR. BOYCOTT.

BALLINROBE, CO. MAYO,
_Wednesday, Nov. 10th._

Finding that despite all the influence brought to bear upon it the
Boycott Brigade was actually going to invade Lough Mask, I came from
Galway to-day by the route preferred by Mr. Boycott himself, just
before I met him and Mrs. Boycott herding sheep more than a fortnight
ago. The steam packet _Lady Eglinton_ conveyed an oddly assorted
freight. Among the passengers were Mrs. Burke, the wife of Lord
Ardilaun's agent, two commercial travellers, the representative of the
_Daily News_, and thirty-two of the Royal Irish Constabulary, who had
been summoned from Galway to the scene of action. From every side
soldiers and constabulary--soldiers in everything but name--converge
upon Ballinrobe and Claremorris, townlets, which, if one could quite
believe their artless inhabitants, are Arcadian in their simplicity,
prosperous to every degree short of the payment of rent, and
absolutely safe as to life and property.

When the good ship _Lady Eglinton_ had puffed and scraped her way
through the tortuous shallows of Lough Corrib to Cong, she was
received by a large meeting of the country folk assembled on the pier.
Fortunately I had secured a car from Ballinrobe to await my arrival,
and the driver, a perfect "gem of the sea," received me with high good
humour. "To Ballinrobe, your honour?" he said, and drove off like a
true son of Nimshi. As soon as he was fairly on the way, I said that I
should like to drive to Ballinrobe by Lough Mask House. "It's not on
our way, your honour," was the first and civil objection. I then
observed that I wished to go that way in order to call on Mr. Boycott.
"Sure it's a different way altogether, your honour," was the answer.
"A long way round, your honour." Then I said, after the brutal Saxon
fashion, "Go that way, nevertheless." No answer, but the speed of the
car relaxed until two other cars came up. Then a particularly wild
Irish conversation was kept up among the drivers, and I observed a
pleasant commercial gentleman who was bound for the village, as
distinguished from the landing-place of Cong, laughing consumedly as
his car branched off and left me to pursue my way in the twilight.
Then my car-driver, evidently backed by a brother car-driver, put his
case plainly. He had been engaged to drive a gentleman from Cong to
Ba