chair. Priest McCarthy was there also,
with his coadjutor, the Rev. Columb Creagh--Father Columb as he was
always called; and there was a Mr. O'Leary from Boherbuy, one of the
middlemen as they were formerly named,--though by the way I never
knew that word to be current in Ireland; it is familiar to all, and
was I suppose common some few years since, but I never heard the
peasants calling such persons by that title. He was one of those with
whom the present times were likely to go very hard. He was not a bad
man, unless in so far as this, that he had no idea of owing any duty
to others beyond himself and his family. His doctrine at present
amounted to this, that if you left the people alone and gave them no
false hopes, they would contrive to live somehow. He believed in a
good deal, but he had no belief whatever in starvation,--none as yet.
It was probable enough that some belief in this might come to him
now before long. There were also one or two others; men who had some
stake in the country, but men who hadn't a tithe of the interest
possessed by Sir Thomas Fitzgerald.

Mr. Townsend again went through the ceremony of shaking hands with
his reverend brethren, and, on this occasion, did not seem to be
much the worse for it. Indeed, in looking at the two men cursorily a
stranger might have said that the condescension was all on the other
side. Mr. M'Carthy was dressed quite smartly. His black clothes were
spruce and glossy; his gloves, of which he still kept on one and
showed the other, were quite new; he was clean shaven, and altogether
he had a shiny, bright, ebon appearance about him that quite did
a credit to his side of the church. But our friend the parson was
discreditably shabby. His clothes were all brown, his white neck-tie
could hardly have been clean during the last forty-eight hours, and
was tied in a knot, which had worked itself nearly round to his ear
as he had sat sideways on the car; his boots were ugly and badly
brushed, and his hat was very little better than some of those worn
by the workmen--so called--at Ballydahan Hill. But, nevertheless,
on looking accurately into the faces of both, one might see which
man was the better nurtured and the better born. That operation
with the sow's ear is, one may say, seldom successful with the first
generation.

"A beautiful morning, this," said the coadjutor, addressing Herbert
Fitzgerald, with a very mild voice and an unutterable look of
friendship; as th