“No, not at all.  But they are on the books of the ’Gombeen man’—­Sweeney of Dungloe and Burtonport.  They’re always in debt to him for the meal; and then he backs the travelling tea-pedlars, and the bakers that carry around cakes, and all these run up the accounts all the time.  Tot up what these people lay out for tea at four shillings a pound—­and they won’t have cheap tea—­and what they pay for meal, and what they pay for interest, and the ’testimonials,’—­they paid for the monument here to O’Donnell, the Donegal man that murdered Carey,—­and the dues to the priest, and you’ll find the L700 or so they don’t pay the landlord going in other directions three and four times over.”

“Then they are falling back into all the old laziness, the men sauntering about, or sitting and smoking, while the women do all the work.”

The maid having told us Mass would be performed at noon, I walked with Lord Ernest a mile or so up the road to Derrybeg, to see the people thronging down from the hills; the women in their picturesque fashion wearing their bright shawls drawn over their heads.  But the maid had deceived us.  The Mass was fixed for eleven, and I suspect her of being a Protestant in disguise.

On the way back we met Mr. Burke, the resident magistrate.  He has a neat house here, with a garden, and had come over from Dunfanaghy to see his wife.  He meant to return before dark.  The country was quiet enough, he said; but there were some troublesome fellows about, keeping up the excitement over the arrest at Father M’Fadden’s trial of Father Stephens—­a young priest recently from Liverpool, who has become the curate of quite another Father M’Fadden—­the parish priest of Falcarragh, and is giving his local superior a great deal of trouble by his activity in connection with the “Plan of Campaign.”  Mr. Wybrants Olphert of Ballyconnell, the chief landlord of Falcarragh, has been “boycotted,” on suspicion of promoting the arrest of the two priests.  Five policemen have been put into his house.  At Falcarragh, where six policemen are usually stationed, there are now forty.  Mr. Burke evidently thinks, though he did not say so, that Father Stephens has been spoiled of his sleep by the laurels of Father M’Fadden of Gweedore.  He is to be tried at Dunfanaghy on Tuesday, and there are now 150 troops quartered there—­Rifles and Hussars.

“Are they not boycotted?” I asked.

“No.  The people rather enjoy the bustle and the show, not to speak of the money the soldiers spend.”

Lord Ernest, who knows Mr. Olphert, sent him over a message by Mr. Burke that we would drive over to-morrow, and pay our respects to him at Ballyconnell.  From this Mr. Burke tried to dissuade us, but what he told us naturally increased our wish to go.