To my great regret Father M’Fadden of Glena, or Falcarragh, was absent from home.  As we drove homeward we met on the way a young lady on a smart jaunting-car, with a servant in livery.  This was the daughter, our driver told us, of Mr. Griffiths, the Protestant clergyman, past whose residence our road lay.  His church stands high upon a commanding cliff, and is a feature in the landscape.  We met the parson himself also, walking with a friend.  The road from Bedlam to Derrybeg goes by a region of the “Rosses,” reputed the most woe-begone part of the Gweedore district.  This is the scene of a curious tale told about Father M’Fadden of Gweedore, by his ill-wishers in these parts, to the effect that he advises English Members of Parliament and other “sympathising” visitors who come here to make a pilgrimage to “the Bosses,” where, no matter at what time of day they appear, they invariably find sundry of the people sitting in their huts and eating stewed seaweed out of iron pots.  I cannot vouch for this tale, but certainly I have seen no people here of either sex, or of any age, who look as if they lived on stewed seaweed.  Another person at Falcarragh told us, as an illustration of the influence exerted by Father M’Fadden of Gweedore, in this parish, over which he has no proper authority, that, in obedience to an intimation from him, the persons whose seats in the chapel had been occupied on two successive Sundays by the policemen now stationed here, yesterday refused to allow the policemen to occupy them, the only exception being in the case of a man who had been arrested at the same time with Father Stephens, and who had been so well treated by the police, that he felt bound to repay their courtesy by offering one of them his seat.

CHAPTER III.

DUNGLOE, Tuesday, Feb. 7.—­We rose early this morning at Gweedore; the sun shining so brightly that we were forced to drop the window-shades at breakfast, while I read my letter from Rome, telling me of the bitter cold there, and of a slight snow-fall last week.  Here the birds were singing, and the air was as soft and exhilarating as that of an April morning in the Highlands of Mexico or Costa Rica.

Our host gave us a capital car, with a staunch nag and a wide-awake jarvey, thanks to all which I found the thirteen miles drive to this place too short.  No doubt it will be a great thing for Donegal when “light railways” are laid down here.  But I pity the traveller of the future here, if he is never to know the delight of traversing these wild and picturesque wastes in such weather as we have had to-day, on a car, well-balanced by a single pleasant companion, drinking, as he goes, deep draughts of the Atlantic air!  Truly on a jaunting-car “two are company and three are none.”  You have almost the free companionship of a South American journey in the saddle, jumping off to walk, when you like, more freely still.