ft
between two deep ditches of black peat-oozings from the bog. Finding
progress almost impossible, we at last forsook the car. I can quite
imagine an impatient reader asking why we did not get out and walk at
first; but the option was hardly a simple one. By walking the horse
and letting the car swing and jolt along one experienced the combined
agonies of sea-sickness and rheumatism, with the additional chance of
being shot headlong into the inky ditch on either side. By taking to
what the driver called "our own hind legs," we accepted an ankle-deep
plod through filth indescribable and treacherous boulders, which
turned over when trust and sixteen stone were reposed on them. It was
at this part of the journey that I saw for the first time the Mountain
Sylph. Some women and children, who looked very frightened, cleared
away towards their wretched dwellings, and the place would presently
have been deserted had not my driver roared at the top of his voice,
"Hullo, the gyurl!" Presently, out of the crowd of frightened people
sprang a "colleen" of about twelve years, as thinly and scantily clad
as is consistent with that decency and modesty for which Irishwomen of
the poorer classes are so justly celebrated. Her legs and feet were
bare, as a matter of course; a faded red petticoat, or rather kilt,
and a "body" of some indescribable hue, in which dirt largely
predominated, formed all her visible raiment and adornment, except a
mass of fair hair, which fluttered wildly in the cutting wind.
Skipping from stone to stone she neared us swiftly, and stood still at
last perched on a huge boulder--an artist's study of native grace and
beauty--with every rag instinct with "wild civility." An inquiry
whether "Misther Browne" was at home was met by the polite answer that
he was from home "just thin," almost instantly supplemented by "Oi
know hwhere he is, and will fetch him to ye, sorr." And away went the
Sylph dancing from spot to spot like the will-o'-the-wisp of her
native bog. She had also indicated the dwelling of Thomas Browne, and
I pushed on in that direction through a maze of mud. At last I came to
a turning into a path several degrees worse in quality than the
"boreen," and concluded that, as it was nearly impassable, it must
lead to the home of the Irreconcilable. As a change it was pleasant to
step from deep slippery mud and slime on to stones placed with their
acutest angles upwards, but a final encounter with these landed