precaution insured its ultimate safety, it did not prevent its

soaring from his head and descending on Mrs. Shamrock's bonnet. He
conscientiously tried holding it on with one hand, but was then

reproved by both neighbours because his macintosh dripped over them.
"How are your spirits, Frenchy?" asked the cutler jocosely.

"I am not too greatly sad," said the poor gentleman, "but I will be
glad it should be finished; far more joyfully" target="_blank" title="ad.高兴地，快乐地">joyfully would I be at

Manchester, triste as it may be."
Just then a gust of wind blew his cape over his head and snapped his

parasol.
"It is evidently it has been made in Ireland," he sighed, with a

desperate attempt at gaiety. "It should have had a grosser stem,
and helas! it must not be easy to have it mended in these barbarous

veelages."
We stopped at four o'clock at a wayside hostelry, and I had quietly

made up my mind to descend from the car, and take rooms for the
night, whatever the place might be. Unfortunately, the same idea

occurred to three or four of the soaked travellers; and as men could
leap down, while ladies must wait for the steps, the chivalrous sex,

their manners obscured by the circular tour system, secured the
rooms, and I was obliged to ascend again, wetter than ever, to my

perch beside the driver.
"Can I get the box seat, do you think, if I pay extra for it?" I had

asked one of the stablemen before breakfast.
"You don't need to be payin', miss! Just confront the driver, and

you'll get it aisy!" If, by the way, I had confronted him at the
end instead of at the beginning of the journey, my charms certainly

would not have been all-powerful, for my coat had been leaked upon
by red and green umbrellas, my hat was a shapeless jelly, and my

face imprinted with the spots from a drenched blue veil.
After two hours more of this we reached the Shan Van Vocht Hotel,

where we had engaged apartments; but we found to our consternation
that it was full, and that we had been put in lodgings a half-mile

away.
Salemina, whose patience was quite exhausted by the discomforts of

the day, groaned aloud when we were deposited at the door of a
village shop, and ushered upstairs to our tiny quarters; but she

ceased abruptly when she really took note of our surroundings.
Everything was humble, but clean and shining--glass, crockery,

bedding, floor, on the which we were dripping pools of water, while
our landlady's daughter tried to make us more comfortable.

"It's a soft night we're havin'," she said, in a dove's voice, "but
we'll do right enough if the win' doesn't rise up on us."

Left to ourselves, we walked about the wee rooms on ever new and
more joyful voyages of discovery. The curtains rolled up and down

easily; the windows were propped upon nice clean sticks instead of
tennis rackets and hearth brushes; there was a well-washed stone to

keep the curtain down on the sill; and just outside were tiny window
gardens, in each of which grew three marigolds and three asters, in

a box fenced about with little green pickets. There were well-
dusted books on the tables, and Francesca wanted to sit down

immediately to The Charming Cora, reprinted from The Girl's Own
Paper. Salemina meantime had tempted fate by looking under the bed,

where she found the floor so exquisitely neat that she patted it
affectionately with her hand.

We had scarcely donned our dry clothing when the hotel proprietor
sent a jaunting-car for our drive to the seven-o'clock table d'hote

dinner. We carefully avoided our travelling companions that night,
but learned the next morning that the Frenchman had slept on four

chairs, and rejected the hotel coffee with the remark that it was
not 'veritable'--a criticism in which he was quite justified. Our

comparative Englishman had occupied a cot in a room where the tin
bathtubs were kept. He was writing to The Times at the moment of

telling me his woes, and, without seeing the letter, I could divine
his impassioned advice never to travel in the west of Ireland in

rainy weather. He remarked (as if quoting from his own
communication) that the scenery was magnificent, but that there was

an entirely insufficient supply of hot water; that the waiters had
the appearance of being low comedians, and their service was of the

character one might expect from that description; that he had been
talking before breakfast with a German gentleman, who had sat on a

wall opposite the village of Dugort, in the island of Achill, from
six o'clock in the morning until nine, and in that time he had seen

coming out of an Irish hut three geese, eight goslings, six hens,
fifteen chickens, two pigs, two cows, two barefooted girls, the

master of the house leading a horse, three small children carrying
cloth bags filled with school-books, and finally a strapping mother

leading a donkey loaded with peat-baskets; that all this poverty and
ignorance and indolence and filth was spoiling his holiday; and

finally, that if he should be as greatly disappointed in the fishing
as he had been in the hotel accommodations--here we almost fainted

from suspense--he should be obliged to go home! And not only that,
but he should feel it his duty to warn others of what they might

expect.
"Perhaps you are justified," said Francesca sympathetically.

"People who are used to the dry, sunny climate and the clear
atmosphere of London ought not to expose themselves to Irish rain

without due consideration."
He agreed with her, glancing over his spectacles to see if she by

any possibility could be amusing herself at his expense--good, old,
fussy, fault-finding Veritas; but indeed Francesca's eyes were so

soft and lovely and honest that the more he looked at her, the less
he could do her the injustice of suspecting her sincerity.

But mind you, although I would never confess it to Veritas, because
he sees nothing but flaws on every side, the Irish pig is, to my

taste, a trifle too much in the foreground. He pays the rent, no
doubt; but this magnificentachievement could be managed from a sty

in the rear, ungrateful as it might seem to immure so useful a
personage behind a door or conceal his virtues from the public at

large.
Chapter XXIV. Humours of the road.

'Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,
Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes.'

Oliver Goldsmith.
If you drive from Clifden to Oughterard by way of Maam Cross, and

then on to Galway, you will pass through the O'Flahertys' country,
one of whom, Murrough O'Flaherty, was governor of this country of

Iar (western) Connaught. You will like to see the last of the
O'Flaherty yews, a thousand years old at least, and the ruins of the

castle and banqueting-hall. The family glories are enumerated in
ancient Irish manuscript, and instead of the butler, footman, chef,

coachman, and gardener of to-day we read of the O'Flaherty
physician, standard-bearer, brehon or judge, master of the revels,

and keeper of the bees; and the moment Himself is rich enough, I
intend to add some of these picturesque personages to our staff.

We afterwards learned that there was formerly an inscription over
the west gate of Galway:-

'From the fury of the O'Flaherties,
Good Lord, deliver us.'

After Richard de Burgo took the town, in 1226, it became a
flourishing English colony, and the citizens must have guarded

themselves from any intercourse with the native Irish; at least, an
old by-law of 1518 enacts that 'neither O' nor Mac shalle strutte ne

swaggere thro' the streetes of Galway.'
We did not go to Galway straight, because we never do anything

straight. We seldom get any reliable information, and never any
inspiring suggestions, from the natives themselves. They are all

patriotically sure that Ireland is the finest counthry in the world,
God bless her! but in the matter of seeing that finest counthry in

the easiest or best fashion they are all very vague. Indirectly,
our own lack of geography, coupled with the ignorance of the people

themselves, has been of the greatest service in enlivening our
journeys. Francesca says that, in looking back, she finds that our

errors of judgment have always resulted in our most charming and
unforgettable experiences; but let no one who is travelling with a