chief
agoing to further themselves. What do they care for the labourers? Why,
no more than the farmers do--and what would become of the poor men! * *
* * here, he is making * * * * * * * and he keeps more poor men going
than all the lawyers and all the farmers in the place a good part of the
year."

"Are the labourers," I asked, "Nationalists?"

"They don't know what they are," he answered. "They hate the farmers,
but they love Ireland, and they all stand together for the counthry!"

"How is it with the Plan of Campaign and the Boycotting?"

"Now what use have the labourers got for the Plan of Campaign? No more
than for the moon! And for the Boycotting, I never liked it--but I was
never afraid of it--and there's not been much of it here."

"Will the Papal Decree put a stop to what there is of it?"

"I wouldn't mind the Pope's Decree no more than that door!" he exclaimed
indignantly. "Hasn't he enough, sure, to mind in Rome? Why didn't he
defend his own country, not bothering about Ireland!"

"Are you not a Catholic, then?" I asked.

"Oh yes, I'm a Catholic, but I wouldn't mind the Decree. Only remember,"
he added, after a pause, "just this: it don't trouble me, for I've
nothing to do with the Plan of Campaign--only I don't want the Pope to
be meddlin' in matters that don't concern him."

"It's out of respect, then, for the Pope that you wouldn't mind the
Decree?"

"Just that, intirely! It was some of them Englishmen wheedled it out of
him, you may be sure, sir."

"I am told you went out to America once."

"Yes, I went there in '48, and I came back in '51."

"What made you go?" I asked.

"Is it what made me go?" he replied, with a sudden fierceness in his
voice. "It was the evictions made me go; that we was put out of the good
holding my father had, and his father before him; and I can never
forgive it, never! But I came back; and it was * * * father that was the
good man to me and to mine, else where would I be?"

I afterwards learned from * * * * that the evictions of which the old
man spoke with so much bitterness were made in carrying out important
improvements, and that it was quite true that his father had greatly
befriended the emigrant when he got enough of the New World and came
home.

It was curious to see the old grudge fresh and fierce in the old man's
heart, but side by side with it the lion lying down with the lamb--a
warm and genuine recognition of the kindness and help bestowed on
him