Upon this I determined to dine with Mr. Colomb, and spend the night in Dublin.  But when I reached the station a couple of hours ago, it was to discover that my excellent porter had confounded 7 A.M. with 7 P.M.

There is no morning train to Castlebar!  So here I am with no recourse, my time being short, but to give up the glimpse I had promised myself of Mayo, and go on this afternoon to Belfast on my way back to London.

At dinner last night Mr. Colomb gave me further and very interesting light upon the events of 1867, of which he had already spoken with me at Cork, as well as upon the critical period of Mr. Gladstone’s experiments of 1881-82 at “Coercion” in Ireland.

Mr. Colomb lives in a remarkably bright and pleasant suburb of Dublin, which not only is called a “park,” as suburbs are apt to be, but really is a park, as suburbs are less apt to be.  His house is set near some very fine old trees, shading a beautiful expanse of turf.  He is an amateur artist of much more than ordinary skill.  His walls are gay, and his portfolios filled, with charming water-colours, sketches, and studies made from Nature all over the United Kingdom.  The grand coast-scenery of Cornwall and of Western Ireland, the lovely lake landscapes of Killarney, sylvan homes and storied towers, all have been laid under contribution by an eye quick to seize and a hand prompt to reproduce these most subtle and transient atmospheric effects of light and colour which are the legitimate domain of the true water-colourist.  With all these pictures about us—­and with Mr. Colomb’s workshop fitted up with Armstrong lathes and all manner of tools wherein he varies the routine of official life by making all manner of instruments, and wreaking his ingenuity upon all kinds of inventions—­and with the pleasant company of Mr. Davies, the agreeable and accomplished official secretary of Sir West Ridgway, the evening wore quickly away.  In the course of conversation the question of the average income of the Irish priests arose, and I mentioned the fact that Lord Lucan, whose knowledge of the smallest details of Irish life is amazingly thorough, puts it down at about ten shillings a year per house in the average Irish parish.

He rated Father M’Fadden and his curate of Gweedore, for example, without a moment’s hesitation, at a thousand pounds a year in the whole, or very nearly the amount stated to me by Sergeant Mahony at Baron’s Court.  This brought from Mr. Davies a curious account of the proceedings in a recent case of a contested will before Judge Warren here in Dublin.  The will in question was made by the late Father M’Garvey of Milford, a little village near Mulroy Bay in Donegal, notable chiefly as the scene of the murder of the late Earl of Leitrim.  Father M’Garvey, who died in March last, left by this will to religious and charitable uses the whole of his property, save L800 bequeathed in it to his niece, Mrs. O’Connor.  It was found that he died possessed not only of a farm