hed from the regular force on particular
duty of the most harassing and vexatious kind. Wherever the person
under protection chooses to go, at whatever hour, or in whatever
weather, his "escort" must accompany him; for their orders are "not to
lose sight of him" outside of his own door. This is a troublesome
duty, sometimes greatly aggravated by the conduct of the protected
persons, who take sudden fits and starts, and fly hither and thither
in the oddest kind of way. The constables get no rest; they are
perpetually harassed and exposed, and they are quite superior to the
consolation of a "tip."

I say this deliberately, for on three several occasions I tried to
give a drenched and half-frozen constable a reward for service
rendered, not for information to be given, and on each and every
occasion I met with a dignified refusal, accompanied by one man with a
friendly caution not to attempt that sort of thing, as some of the men
might be rough. I say that I did not ask for information, because I
generally knew more than the constables, for the excellent reason that
I had wider and better sources to draw upon. From the country folk it
is absolutely impossible to glean any scrap of information. A question
immediately shapes their countenances into a look of hopeless
simplicity and guilelessness bordering upon idiocy. Persons in quest
of information in the remote parts of Ireland put me in mind of the
hunter of the Rocky Mountains, who, while he was trying to stalk some
antelope, became aware that a grizzly bear was stalking him. The
people find out all about the person seeking for knowledge, but he
discovers nothing.

After this it is needless to say that the constabulary must of
necessity be the last people to learn anything from the country folk,
and that a London detective would be as much out of his element as "a
salmon on a gravel walk."

Between Ennis and Maryfort we only met two brace of constables on the
road, but we knew there were others with Mr. Hall, of Cluny, at Tulla,
and other places within ten miles of Colonel O'Callaghan's house.
There was a little gathering of people near the chapel at Bearfield,
but in other respects the road was empty till we neared our
destination, when a little crowd set up an Irish howl against us,
followed by a shout of "Long live Parnell." Presently we came to
Lismeehan gates, opened after a good steady look at us by an ancient
retainer, in a grey frieze coat. I was told civilly