to say of Father Maher, and especially by his frank and sensible
recommendation of the reports in the London _Times_ as the best account
I could find of the Luggacurren difficulty. To this they could not
demur, but things have got, or are getting, in Ireland, I fear, to a
point at which candour, on one side or the other of the burning
questions here debated, is regarded with at least as much suspicion as
the most deliberate misrepresentation. As to Mr. Town send Trench, what
Father Maher failed to tell me, I was here told: That down to the time
of the actual evictions he offered to take six months' rent from the
tenants, give them a clean book, and pay all the costs. To refuse this
certainly looks like a "war measure."

But for the loneliness of her life here, Mrs. Hutchins tells me she
would find it delightful. The country is exceedingly lovely in the
summer and autumn months.

When my car came out to take me back to Athy, I found my jarvey in
excellent spirits, and quite friendly even with Mr. Hutchins himself. He
kept up a running fire of lively commentaries upon the residents whose
estates we passed.

"Would you think now, your honour," he said, pointing with his whip to
one large mansion standing well among good trees, "that that's the
snuggest man there is about Athy? But he is; and it's no wonder! Would
you believe it, he never buys a newspaper, but he walks all the way into
Athy, and goes about from the bank to the shops till he finds one, and
picks it up and reads it. He's mighty fond of the news, but he's fonder,
you see, of a penny!

"There now, your honour, just look at that house! It's a magistrate he
is that lives there; and why? Why, just to be called 'your honour,' and
have the people tip their hats to him. Oh! he delights in that, he does.
Why, you might knock a man, or put him in the water, you might, indeed,
but if you came before Mr.----, and you just called him 'your honour'
often enough, and made up to him, you'd be all right! You've just to go
up to him with your hat in your hand, looking up at him, and to say,
'Ah! now, your honour'" (imitating the wheedling tone to perfection),
"and indeed you'd get anything out of him--barring a sixpence, that is,
or a penny!

"Ah! he's a snug one, too!" And with that he launched a sharp thwack of
the whip at the grey mare, and we went rattling on apace.

At the very pretty station of Athy we parted the best of friends. "Wish
you safe home, your honour.